Thurgood Marshall in Postwar Suburbia
Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) was a student of Charles Houston, special counsel to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He followed in his mentor's footsteps and began working for the NAACP in 1938.
Marshall became a key prosecuting attorney in several school segregation cases argued before the Supreme Court, including the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson successfully nominated him for a seat on the Court, making Marshall the first African American to hold a position on the highest court in the land.
Marshall was serving as Chief Counsel for the NAACP in 1948 when the landmark case Shelley v. Kraemer came before the Supreme Court. He successfully represented the Shelleys in their fight against restrictive covenants, which excluded non-whites from buying property in white communities.